


in her absence i created her image

by atlas (songs)



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-25
Updated: 2015-04-25
Packaged: 2018-03-25 17:30:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3818893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/songs/pseuds/atlas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Gon dreams, now, he dreams in blue— in lightning-constellations and tilted moonscape. Sometimes, the sleep-wind will hum, Ne, Gon, and it sounds almost familiar, almost right. But even in a dream, the breeze is not the boy. It won’t make a face or hold a name.</p><p>It will only disappear, just like everything else.</p>
            </blockquote>





	in her absence i created her image

˚ ・ . ¸ ¸ . ¤¨ ˚ ・ . ¸.

When Gon dreams, now, he dreams in blue— in lightning-constellations and tilted moonscape. Sometimes, the sleep-wind will hum,  _Ne_ ,  _Gon_ , and it sounds almost familiar, almost right. But even in a dream, the breeze is not the boy. It won’t make a face or hold a name.

It will only disappear, just like everything else.

When Gon wakes up, his eyes are wet. He touches a finger to his eyelashes— _Killua always had such long eyelashes_ —and says, “Ah.”

The realization comes quietly.  _I miss Killua._

Later, he skims through his empty email on Mito-san’s new computer, and finally lets himself wonder:

 _Does Killua miss me_?

-

Gon checks his email once a day. He receives messages from: Bisky, Palm, Leorio, Knuckle, Morrel.  _Wing-san,_ even.

 _But not_ —

He can’t bring himself to read or reply to anything. He lets them pile, little paper-mail towers behind the screen. He believes he might just understand Kurapika a bit better, if only a sliver. Gon wakes up and washes his face and hangs laundry and cooks and fishes and does homework, sometimes, but he isn’t  _there._ He’s in his head, in a place and time where there was no world he couldn’t run to, no hand he couldn’t reach.

But now his hands feel naked and Nenless and smaller than they used to be. They say you can hear your heartbeat in your wrist but Gon doesn’t hear much of anything at all, even when he tries to listen. Gon has never really  _tried_ to listen to anyone or anything before, and it shows; Mito-san marks red all over his worksheets, lets the mistakes blare back at him, sink in.

“You only need some practice,” she says, kindly. “You haven’t done this in a while.”

 _No,_ he thinks, scrolling through his email the next day. There’s a new message from Zushi, but Gon doesn’t read it.

_I haven’t._

-

The longing comes in shadows—in tethers of starlight, scraps of fire. During the mornings, Gon watches birds with white feathers glide past his window, and he is reminded of a home away from home. Whale Island carries twelve of his years but it all stops there, Gon comes to realize. It stops there. He loves Grandma and Mito-san but loving isn’t always  _belonging,_ and Gon reckons he must be more like Ging than anyone had ever imagined.

 _Everyone leaves,_ Gon thinks, but it’s not quite bitter.  _Everyone leaves, but I leave them first, don’t I?_

As Gon treks through the forest, he is careful of the flowers. Especially the blue ones. They peer up at him with wish-thin necks and memory eyes.

“Look, Killua—” he starts, on impulse. The empty space beside him gleams in the sunlight, and he lets out a tinny laugh, scratches at his neck sheepishly.

“Look at me,” he says, faintly. “I’m being so silly. I really…”

_Miss him._

-

 _I pretend you’re here a lot,_ Gon writes, on lined paper. He glares down at his swan-scrawl handwriting—nothing like Killua’s elegant script, or Mito-san’s gentle cursive—and crumples the sheet in two.

-

“You’re leaving soon, aren’t you?” Mito-san asks. Gon jumps, nearly dropping the plates he was putting away. She sends him a chiding glance, and he obediently places the china back onto the table before responding.

“Is it obvious?” he asks, a hush in his voice. It’s been that way for a while, now. Like there is a rope in his throat, winding everything back. “I—”

“I didn’t think you’d manage the year,” she interrupts. “You didn’t finish all your lessons, or your work. But…”

Gon blinks when she places a soft hand to his cheek. “I don’t like seeing you so sad.”

“I’m not sad, though,” Gon insists, a beat too late. It’s a half-lie, scrapes like salt in his teeth. Mito-san just gives her knowing look—equal parts tender and melancholy. 

“There’s somewhere you have to go, isn’t there?” she asks.  _There is someone else you need_. As Gon stares at her, he notices something different in her expression. She doesn’t look resigned, or defeated. She just looks like she understands _this_ – all of it, even the pieces he cannot. For a long time, Gon had wondered just who Mito-san saw when she looked at him.

But now he knows better.

“I love you, Gon,” she tells him, leaning down. Wordlessly, she presses a kiss to the part of his hair. “You’re always welcome here.”

She does not say  _home._

And Gon thinks: Mito-san understood this all along.

-

Gon waves out to Mito-san and Grandma, his steps light on the jasmine-ground. The beetle-curve of his phone dents into his palm; he runs the numbers in his head, and then the words.

He decides,  _I can do this._

And then he does.

-

_Ring._

_Ring._

_Ring._

A clatter of static. A familiar voice.

“Hello?” it asks.

And Gon breathes:

“Killua—”


End file.
